


We Accept the Love We Think We Deserve

by aria_dc_al_fine



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Breeding Program, Bruce Banner Feels, F/M, Implied Past Child Abuse, M/M, Miscarriage, Omega Verse, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-14 08:30:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aria_dc_al_fine/pseuds/aria_dc_al_fine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Banner went through a lot to be the man he was today, a resident obstetrician at the Pegasus and the Omega who can turn Tony Stark to a doting husband.</p><p>Bruce was one of the first few Omegas in the Safe and Healthy Impregnation, Embryogenesis, Labor & Delivery program. He didn't join it by choice, but looking back, it was the best thing that had ever happened to Bruce.</p><p>(Or: The first time Tony met Bruce, the Omega was heavy with someone else’s pup.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Definition of Perfect](https://archiveofourown.org/works/830572) by [msraven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msraven/pseuds/msraven). 



> Title is borrowed from a quote by Stephen Chbosky, from "The Perks of Being a Wallflower".
> 
> Neither the idea of the Safe and Healthy Impregnation, Embryogenesis, Labor & Delivery (SHIELD) program nor the Avengers is mine.
> 
> This fic is inspired by the world built in 'The Definition of Perfect', which gives you a glimpse of what the SHIELD program (the breeding one, not the canon one) was like in the 2010s, with Clint as the main character. You can understand this fic without reading 'The Definition of Perfect' but I would really encourage you to ;).

Bruce Banner was angry.

(He almost always was.)

He glared at the man seated across him, a grey-haired Beta doctor dressed in a nondescript lab coat. The identity card attached to his pocket stated, ‘Dr Erskine’.  Despite the calm manner he was exhibiting, and the friendly smile adorning his bearded face, the dark eyes staring at Bruce steadily through horn-rimmed glasses were steely. 

Beta soldiers (and the occasional Alpha ones) continued guarding the doors stoically as the doctor spoke, “Mr Banner,” (Bruce clenched his fists), “the Safe and Healthy Impregnation, Embryogenesis, Labor & Delivery program is your best option right now.”

Bruce barked a laugh. “Because your program is so experimental you have to resort to recruiting convicts. And a juvenile record is sealed and can be expunged,” he said sarcastically.

Dr Erskine gave Bruce a humourless smile. “Planning to blow up your school during school hours and killing half the staff and students there – approximately five hundred lives – is a serious crime,” his voice was stern, “You’re not facing house arrest or probation here, Mr Banner. You’re facing jail…and most definitely a blended sentence [1].”

_And you won’t want to be an Omega in heat in an adult jail_ , the unspoken but implied sentence hang heavily in the air, _they’ll tear you apart._

‘They wouldn’t,’ Bruce thought. There weren’t enough Omegas in the US, and the number was declining year by year, with advances in medical technology enabling more Betas to carry (their statistically more likely Beta children) to term. His dynamic was something Bruce had hoped would protect him from incarceration.

(But of course, Bruce didn’t even plan on surviving the bomb in the first place. He fully intended to disappear, along with the jerks, the good-for-nothing chauvinistic Alphas and Betas bullies in that sorry excuse of a school, brainless criminal-to-be who thought Omegas could ever amount to nothing and didn’t hesitate to tell this to Bruce’s face every single day. Bruce was doing his country a favour, really.)

But of course, when have fate been kind to Bruce?

 “Even if you survive that ordeal,” Dr Erskine continued painting the horror story for him, “you’ll leave jail without having finished high school, some ten, twenty years from now. I don’t have to tell you how doomed your life will be.”

When the doctor looked at him again, there was something almost…tender about his gaze. “You’re smart…Bruce,” Bruce gritted his teeth at the reminder ( _he’s a freak, freak, freak_ ), but at least the older man had stopped calling him with his father’s name. “I know you can be something…more. A lot more. In our program, you will have a place to live in, you will be well-nourished, you can study for GED and if you are up to it we can even provide you financial assistance to complete college.”

_Bullshit._ Bruce would be kept pregnant, year after year after year, until his body broke. He would just be the breeding machine everyone expected him to be.

“And letting my babies live with parents who weren’t pregnant with them and didn’t form bonds with them during the pregnancy is a good idea, isn’t it?” Bruce snarled, half surprised that of all sentences, _this_ would be the one he’d voice out.

But that was the gist of it, wasn’t it? The world was rotten and a horrible place to live and Bruce had never wanted to bring a life into this place. His mother, the Omega who’d had him for nine months in her womb, was the only person who’d ever cared about him.

Dr Erskine was quiet for a while. “I know your…family situation was not ideal, Bruce,” despite how soft and careful he sounded, Bruce still flinched, “but couples have to pass through very stringent State requirements to be adoptive parents…and some of them in our list have waited for five years to have your baby. I can guarantee that they will cherish your baby, love him, and treat him right,” _even more so than yours did._

And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

\----------

At least, Bruce thought as every inch of his body was prodded and examined, he would be contributing to the world now.

\----------

The first heat Bruce shared with an Alpha assigned to him (Patrick, a twenty-something blonde with broad shoulders and a strong frame, a cop), some three weeks after Bruce signed the contract that would drop his charges and signed him to five years in the Safe and Healthy Impregnation, Embryogenesis, Labor & Delivery program, was a _disaster_.

Bruce was not sexually active before joining the program. Well, for one, no one had exactly been pawing for a nerdy, weird guy like him. Also, he had his first heat late (at sixteen, two to three years later than the average Omega). Bruce’s cycles were irregular and generally heavy (might be due to malnourishment, the medical staff who performed Bruce’s entry physical speculated) and Bruce generally disappeared to the heat hostels [2] to take care of his problems by himself. He’d shared a heat (his first) with someone else by accident, staying in a secluded corner of the public library after school to sit out the discomforts he’d been feeling over his spine and his feverish skin for the past week, only to lose his senses by the evening. The Beta librarian who’d found him helped relieved him before sending him to the clinic, where a patient Omega nurse taught Bruce how to use the _pelvic massager_ [3] after he’d regained his full mental capacity two days later. Bruce thought he was going to combust in shame.

Bruce had never particularly liked Alphas (not that he liked Betas any better). May be (most definitely) they smelled too much like his father, and Bruce had never associated his father to an overwhelming sense of safety (it was rather the opposite).

So the moment Patrick entered the room, Bruce, who had been sitting at the corner in nothing but the medical grub that exposed his genitals, his skin clammy with sweat and his thighs wet with slick, curled into a ball and was paralyzed in terror instead of getting down on all four and presenting himself to the strong, virile Alpha.

Everyone in the observatory next to the room (attached to a drawer for the nurses to pass the coupling Omega and Alpha water, towels and blankets over the next few days) noticed that something was wrong straight away, and despite the fact that the room stank of Bruce’s pheromones, Patrick had enough sense to not start stripping off and mounting him. (Or may be Bruce just didn’t smell that good.)

“Get Mr Eriksson out of the room,” Dr Erskine, who monitored every single one of the program participant’s first facilitated intercourse, told the rest of the staff in the observatory, who immediately prepared themselves to go in and manhandle the Alpha out of the room. Patrick left the room without much struggle. He was a cop before he was an Alpha, so when the bespectacled doctor apologized to him, the blonde only shook his head.

“There is violence in his family background, isn’t there?” Patrick was staring at Bruce through the two-way mirror as he breathed deeply to calm his dynamic, which five minutes ago was convinced that there was an Omega to be claimed.

Dr Erskine looked down and pursed his lips. “His father was an alcoholic Alpha,” he said quietly. Brian Banner’s crime was in public records; he wasn’t divulging anything confidential.

An involuntary growl left the blonde’s throat. Patrick hated Alphas who were dicks, and made their spouses and pups suffer instead of providing for them. His eyes couldn’t help but soften slightly as they watched Bruce slowly unfurling in the other room, letting the nurses take care of him. “Such a beautiful Omega,” he whispered, “It’s going to be a tough journey righting the wrong, Doctor. I really hope you’ll succeed.”

Dr Erskine sighed. “You and I both, Mr Eriksson. You and I both.”

“Well,” when it appeared that his body had returned to normal, Patrick stood up, “perhaps next time it’ll help if the Alpha he’s assigned to meet with him before the heat, you know, to familiarize with him.”

Dr Erskine blinked. “What a brilliant idea.” Why did he never think of it before? [4]

The Alpha grinned. “Always glad to help,” he waved his hand.

The doctor waved as the blonde left, thanking the Gods he’d chosen the cop correctly as Bruce’s first match.

\----------

Bruce came to two days later, none the worse for wear. No pains on the hips and legs he’d expected to feel. No cramps in his arms. In fact, Bruce felt very much like after his first heat, where he had nurses assisting him.

The thought woke Bruce up with a jolt, his heart beating quickly under his ribcage. He turned his head to sniff himself, and his stomach sank.

Bruce wasn’t pregnant.

In fact, judging from the lack of any Alpha’s scent on his body, an intercourse might not have happened at all. (The nurses might have cleaned him, sure, but even after that the assigned Alpha’s scent should stick. Alpha’s pheromones weren’t that easy to scrub away.)

 Not only was Bruce a freak, he was also a _failure_ for an Omega.

Not long after Bruce had regained consciousness, Dr Erskine entered the medical bay and approached Bruce’s bed. He leaned on the headboard and smiled at the younger man. “How are you?” he asked in a carefully constructed friendly tone. Bruce hated it.

“…Why did you stop the intercourse from happening?” Bruce was never one to beat around the bush.

The older man’s face fell. He straightened up. “Because you weren’t ready,” he spoke as though he was sighing, his face looking ten years older in the blink of an eye. “It’s okay. We can wait for your next heat.”

“Which can be in…two months or a year, I don’t know,” Bruce gripped his blanket tightly. “Isn’t my having babies the whole point of this?” the pitch of his voice started rising.

“If we let the intercourse happen, it would have been rape,” Dr Erskine said, his loud voice overriding Bruce’s thin, frail one. The Beta moved to the end of the bed. “Look at me, Bruce,” the doctor commanded, and the Omega followed instinctively until their eyes made contact. “We need you to have babies for the country, yes,” Dr Erskine’s dark brown eyes held Bruce’s as he talked; his words precise, warm but firm, “but we don’t want to _damage_ you. We want you to be able to have your own children after you leave this program, if you choose to. That means you being able to have a healthy sexual life with a potential significant other later and not _always scared_ of anyone who finds you special and attractive,” he hissed the last part of the sentence.

Bruce inhaled sharply. _But nobody is going to. I’m a monster_. He began to shake.

The good doctor sighed. “You still need to rest,” he mumbled as he took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll see you later,” his voice grew fainter as he stepped away.

Bruce lay down when the nurses told him to, but sleep eluded him the whole night.

\----------

They placed more therapy sessions in Bruce’s schedule. Bruce attended them dutifully, but after a couple of hours of psychologists managing to coax nothing out of the dark-haired Omega, they turned to sessions of yoga and art and craft instead. Bruce spent the rest of his time lightly exercising as the doctors suggested (keeping himself fit for the pregnancy he was meant to already have by this time) and staring at the ceiling of his private quarter, his mind constructing and reconstructing the molecular structures of organic compounds, the last thing he studied in high school. When asked what his favorite pastimes were, Bruce told Dr Hernandez he liked to read about physics, and a week later a set of the most updated American scientific journals appeared in the empty cabinet at his quarter.

Bruce waited dreadfully for his next heat, hoping to God it would come soon and result in a baby. They were wasting so much money for him, and if he didn’t deliver his end of the bargain, they would ship him to jail. Sometimes Bruce wondered why they hadn’t already.

“What’s the last interesting thing you’ve read about?” Rick Jones’ question pulled Bruce out of his reverie.

In a bid to get Bruce more used to Alphas, once every two to three days he would meet one of the Alphas in the program for an hour, just to talk about nothing or have an activity together. Bruce had met Patrick again a week ago in the gym, the blonde smiling widely when he told him, ‘Glad you look better now.’

Rick Jones was a cheerful guy, loved sports and joking around [5]. He was Bruce’s antithesis. At first he reminded Bruce of the Alpha bullies in his previous high school, but Rick was more considerate and strangely protective of him; he wasn’t half bad.

“It’ll bore you,” Bruce answered, a small smile splaying on his lips. No matter how fascinating the World Wide Web was to Bruce, Rick’s eyes would glaze over after two sentences.

The slightly older Alpha raised his chin and looked at Bruce with an expression that said, ‘try me.’

As Bruce worried about what to say next, Peggy plopped herself to the empty seat at their cafeteria table. “Good afternoon, lads,” the dual British-US citizen nodded at them, “could you lend me a hand?”

Peggy Carter was one of the older Omegas in the facility, one of the few who actually volunteered to join the program. Yue Lan, an Asian American Omega in her early twenties who’d participated in the program to avoid charges like Bruce had, made the mistake of asking Peggy what her crime was. The glare Peggy subjected the black-haired woman to could have sent her six feet under, if looks could kill. As it was, Peggy was still giving Yue Lan the cold shoulder now.

Peggy’d given birth to an Alpha in the program before, and baby Phil was adopted by the Coulsons [6], a loving Beta couple who lived the American dream. Photos of the adorable blue-eyed baby dotted her living quarter, Bruce realised, as Peggy brought him and Rick there.

What she needed help with was also apparent, wooden blocks and home-improvement tools strewn all over the table at the centre of the room. “I’m making a fire station toy for Phil,” she explained, “but my grip on the saw isn’t too steady.”

“So cool,” Rick bounced into the room excitedly, “A birthday present? I wish my parents gave me something like this when I was a kid!”

Bruce picked up one of the frames and stared at a photo of baby Phil in a swimsuit, grinning toothlessly as a hazel-eyed blonde woman held him up. He traced the smile on the tiny human’s face. “They let you in his life much?”

Peggy nodded. “They never plan to keep it a secret from him, that he’s adopted.”

“Wow,” Ricky raised his brows, “I don’t know if that’s dumb or that’s good for you. I mean, he’s not exactly your kid now, is he?”

_Well-said_ , Bruce thought.

Peggy grew pensive.

“Uh…sorry,” Ricky frowned and raised his hands. “I put my foot in my mouth a lot-”

“Just lend me your bloody hand,” she commanded, and the boys got down to work because if Alphas could be females, Bruce bet Peggy could definitely pass off as an Alpha.

\----------

Five weeks later, Bruce started feeling a tingle at the base of his spine, and he breathed a sigh in relief that he didn’t have to wait six months for his next heat.

The morning after Bruce told Dr Hernandez his suspicion, there was an Indian man in his late thirties waiting for Bruce in the room designated as the facility’s dance studio, where Bruce usually had his yoga sessions.

“Hi, I’m Raj Sharma,” he offered his hand, lean muscles rippling under the chocolaty skin of his bicep as his arm moved, “a sex therapist,” he winked, “and your Alpha match for your incoming heat.”

Bruce blushed red as a tomato. “Bruce Banner,” he nearly stammered.

“Okay, Bruce,” Raj’s large, smooth hand covered the back of Bruce’s and the Omega nearly jumped in shock, “for the next few days, we’re going to work on making you feel more comfortable with intimate touches.”

For the next one hour, Raj caressed different parts of his skin, moving inward from the end of Bruce’s limbs. He was gentle, never pushing when Bruce tensed in discomfort, always patiently waiting for him to relax again, his baritone accented voice soothing and lulling as he continually told Bruce what he was going to touch and praising the Omega every time he let Raj closer to his erogenous zones [7]. By the end of it, Bruce was deathly embarrassed that he was half-hard, but Raj only beamed at the slight tenting of the younger man’s pants.

“It’s only right that you feel aroused. We’re to have intercourse by the end of the week, after all,” he reassured Bruce, his fingers heavenly as they petted the Omega, carding through Bruce’s hopeless curls in repetitive motions. “You’ve done well today, pup, you’ve been so brave.”

Bruce didn’t believe any word of it, but he soaked in the affection in Raj’s voice like a starved man, his eyes closing as he leaned into the touch.

Before they parted, Bruce looked down at his feet as he asked, “You aren’t an Alpha from the program, are you?”

Raj chuckled. “You’re so sharp, pup,” he reached for Bruce’s hair again. “Yes, Dr Erskine specifically brought me in for you.”

Bruce flinched inwardly. Again, they had to put in extra effort for him-

“But I did willingly choose to be your partner for your incoming heat, Bruce,” Raj lifted Bruce’s chin and kept his gaze, “for I’m to be one of the adoptive parents of the baby resulting from that heat, if all is well, and you’re a gorgeous Omega. I’m endlessly grateful that it’s you who will be the biological mother of my child.” Raj leaned in to drop a kiss below Bruce’s ear.

_You’re just desperate to finally have a child_ , Bruce thought, somewhat unkindly, but craned his head back to offer Raj easier access anyway. Better enjoy it while it last.

\----------

In the next few days, Raj managed to get Bruce to let the Alpha strip him naked and hug him tightly without anything between them, skin pressing against skin from calves to torso. “We’re ready,” Raj spoke to Bruce’s hair.

God, Bruce hoped so.

When Bruce’s heat arrived, the Omega was able to identify Raj by his scent as he entered the room designated for their facilitated intercourse. Bruce dug his nails against his thighs to keep them from curling to a fetal position, forcing himself to keep his breathing even, according to Raj’s soothing counts.

“That’s it, Bruce,” the Indian petted Bruce’s hair as he entered the younger man’s personal space, his demeanor calm and controlled despite the fact that his huge Alpha cock was hard and straining against his medical gown. “Good boy,” he praised when Bruce managed to uncurl his fists.

The Omega whimpered, his belly warm from having managed to satisfy the Alpha.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Raj spoke as he carefully guided Bruce to his hands and knees, his touches gentle as he examined Bruce’s opening. His rims parted under the Alpha’s fingers, slowly dripping with slick.

Bruce listened as the Alpha positioned himself behind him, his steady hands never leaving Bruce’s skin. “Are you ready?”

Bruce nodded. He didn’t think he ever would, but there weren’t many choices.

The Gods must have decided to be kind to him today, for the moment Raj started pushing in, filling the void that’d been aching in most of the Omega’s previous heats, the pleasure forced the perpetual noises in Bruce’s mind to shut up.

Three days later, Bruce woke up with little recollection of his heat (as usual) and in pain, muscles he didn’t know he had throbbing, but a smile spread on his lips. For he knew, without a doubt, even before Dr Hernandez’s tests, that he was pregnant.

Bruce was, for the first time since what seemed like forever, perfectly content.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I claim to be no expert on the US’ juvenile laws in late 1980s, where this fic is set (in msraven’s fic, Phil is one of the first children of the program, and he’s 26. Meaning the program started in 1987. In the beginning of this fic Bruce’s 17.5 yrs old) but a blended sentence means that the sentence is long enough the delinquent in a juvenile facility is transferred to an adult facility once the juvenile reaches the age of majority. Source: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/juvenile-court-sentencing-options-32225.html. I know in the comics/fanon that the army paid Bruce thru college for constructing that bomb instead and never mentioned juvenile charges, but if failed theft (guys breaking into a grocery store beating people up and demanding for money but failing to extract anything) is still chargeable, then failed bombing sure is.  
> 2\. Heat hostels are a concept borrowed from ‘A May-September Romance’ (http://archiveofourown.org/works/776979) by Not_You. It’s for families with Omega kids whose houses are too small for the parents to escape the scent and the inevitable sounds as the Omega kids in heat take care of themselves or work it off with someone else. In Bruce’s case he just didn’t want to bother his aunt’s family.  
> 3\. Pelvic Massager is basically a dildo with inflatable knot. The name is borrowed from ‘The Revolution Will Not be Civilized’ (http://archiveofourown.org/works/268993) by the_ragnarok. It’s Inception AU tho, Eames/Arthur.  
> 4\. Some of the procedures in msraven’s fic won’t be practiced here yet, since the doctors in the program are still experimenting with the optimum features for a voluntary breeding program that don’t tax the Omegas’ bodies too much.  
> 5\. Again, I’ve never read the Incredible Hulk comics or watched previous Hulk movies. My knowledge of Rick Jones comes from Wikipedia.  
> 6\. There’s a story written out there…where Peggy was Phil’s mother, and that headcanon sort of stuck.  
> 7\. I’ve never been to a sex therapy…I don’t know what happens in those therapies; I’m just using my creative license here.


	2. Chapter 2

These days, Bruce walked down the hallways of the facility seemingly in a daze, amazed that something was finally going right in his life.

Bruce hadn’t been this settled…ever. Logically, Bruce knew this…contentment was due to the endorphins released by his Omega physiology during pregnancy, but Bruce wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Let his bodily chemical cocktail chase the anxieties and the angry voices in his head away; Bruce would enjoy it while it last.

His Alpha visitation hours were replaced with Lamaze, light aerobics and education classes to let him know what to expect. Raj visited him every week, less tactile now that the business was done. But once in a while, Raj still touched Bruce’s hand (unnecessarily) as he gestured for a particular anecdote, or flung his arm around Bruce’s shoulder to give it a squeeze, his tone always warm and welcoming.

For that friendliness, Bruce invited him and his spouse to the Omega’s first ultrasound four weeks after the heat. Peggy had only met the Coulsons for sonography in her last trimester, as guidelines dictated, but Bruce’s case was different.

The woman sat next to Raj in the waiting area was a gorgeous hazel-eyed Beta, her smooth brown hair resting on her lean frame in curls. She was bouncing with restless energy as Bruce passed them in the corridor to the OB/GYN centre, and she shot to her feet the moment he stopped by her.

“Hi Mrs Sharma. I’m Bruce Banner,” Bruce offered her his hand with a nervous smile. After all, he did have an extra-marital intercourse with her husband.

The Omega was shocked when the brunette enveloped him in a hug. “Oh, you’re so lovely,” she bowed her head and spoke to his hair. She was tall, taller than Bruce. “Thank you so much for doing this for us. And,” she stepped back and beamed at him, “Call me Michelle.”

“I-it’s,” Bruce didn’t know what to say. Mrs Sharma was larger than life, and technically, birthing babies was Bruce’s obligation to the program, in exchange for his get out of jail free card. “…You’re welcome, Michelle,” he ended up saying.

The Beta’s grin only widened.

The three of them entered the room next to Dr Hernandez’s consultancy, where a bed and an ultrasound machine resided. As Bruce lay there quietly, the device rubbing against the gel on his flat lower belly, he wasn’t looking at the screen at all. No, his gaze was locked on Michelle’s face, on the wonder in her eyes and the happiness shown in the curve of her lips as she stared at what should be just a gestational sac on the grainy monitor. That star-struck expression was mirrored on Raj’s face and in that instance Bruce knew, without a doubt, that the couple had fallen madly, deeply in love with the embryo, the sesame-seed mass of cells in Bruce’s womb.

A great weight was lifted off the Omega’s shoulders, the tension Bruce didn’t know he’d held for weeks gone so quickly he was literally as limp as an invertebrate.  

At last, Bruce had made one right choice.

\----------

Bruce continued to invite the Sharmas to his check-ups, and as each week passed, their enthusiasm for seeing each stage of the embryo’s development grew [1]. When it took on a tadpole-shape, Michelle squealed; when they could see the tiny, tiny heart pulsing on the black-and-white monitor, the couple cooed and stayed still, just watching the dot-of-an-organ twitching, and at week nine, when the embryonic tail disappeared off the grape-sized baby and they could finally see ten little fingers and toes, Michelle’s eyes grew misty.

Later, in the quiet of Bruce’s quarter, with Raj off to the cafeteria to buy them food, Michelle looked down at the table and spoke, “Six years ago, I lost mine in week seven,” her voice papery thin and soft as a ghost. “We tried again and again…but I couldn’t conceive anymore. These past two months, I still couldn’t believe that I’m going to be a parent…but now, I begin to hope.” She leaned over to kiss Bruce on the temple before the Omega could see her face. “Thank you for carrying this angel for us,” her voice was wet.

It was unfair, Bruce thought, that someone as kind and _deserving_ as Michelle tried so hard and failed, but just because he was an Omega (a fact he resented), all it took Bruce was one heat. Bruce’s ingratitude for his biology aside, he was now convinced that his baby would be in the right hands.

\----------

One day, Bruce meandered into the cafeteria more dazed than usual. For one, his ‘morning’ sickness had been absolutely relentless. They’d always occurred throughout the day for Bruce, but today, he’d vomited twice and still felt nausea. Secondly, as he dressed up this morning, Bruce noticed that there was a _bump_ in his lower belly, smaller than his palm. He was internally freaked out, although he couldn’t fathom why.

“Oh!” Bruce had been so caught up in his own world he walked into Yue Lan, whose sight was obstructed by this towering stack of books and notes she was holding in her arms, all tumbling to the ground due to the collision. She was heavily pregnant at seven months, and combined with the weight of the books, Bruce felt like he’d just hit a wall.

“I’m so sorry!” the petite Asian American looked down at Bruce, who’d fallen to the floor on his ass. Bruce wasn’t a tall man, but Yue Lan was tiny at five feet nothing. “Are you all right?” she offered her hand.

Bruce smiled at her. “I should be asking you.”

Yue Lan shrugged. “I’m a mutt, not a Pekinese. I’m used to street life. I’m sturdy that way.”

Bruce laughed and helped her pick the books as he got up. He read one of the titles: ‘Statistics for Business and Economics’.

“I was studying for one of my modules,” she answered the unvoiced question in Bruce’s eyes. “I can’t study in my own quarter. The bed is too inviting,” she moaned. “But now that the cafeteria is filling up, I need to crash elsewhere.”

Bruce chuckled. Humorous and tolerant, she was one of the easiest Omegas to get along with in the facility.

One of the words she’d spoken caught his attention. “Module?”

“I’m studying at the State University of New York,” Yue Lan puffed her chest in pride.

Bruce’s eyebrows rose to his hairline before he could prevent it. Generally, Bruce didn’t like to be nosy (Peggy was so reserved, and Bruce didn’t go out of his way to befriend any older Omegas or any of the new Omegas enrolled in the program after him), but Yue Lan had never been seen remotely angry before (irritated, yes, she liked to complain sometimes, but she was so hilarious when she did so, her gestures wide and her expressions comical), so Bruce ploughed on. “They let you out of the facility?”

She raised her left hand, and Bruce only just noticed that there was a metal bracelet around her wrist. “This won’t let me,” she poked the contraption, “it’s fitted with a GPS [2], which is-”

“The Global Positioning System,” Bruce continued absently; he had read about it. He blinked. Bruce knew that Dr Erskine had mentioned about the program supporting him for college, but he’d always assumed it was just a gimmick. “Huh.”

“Besides, it’s not like I _want_ to run away. Free food, free lodging, free yoga…who in the right mind would?” she joked. The sentence, though, told Bruce that they were alike; she had nowhere else to go.

Bruce looked down. The piece of paper in his hand had an unfinished equation scrawled on it. The male Omega couldn’t help but notice something was wrong. “The confidence coefficient should be 99%,” he murmured to himself.

Yue Lan caught it anyway, and instead of looking annoyed, she stared at Bruce like he was a hero. “You’re good at stats?” she sounded hopeful.

“I’m…okay with it,” Bruce said bashfully. At the older Omega’s puppy-eyed pleading gaze, Bruce sighed, “Ok, I can help you study in my quarter.” It would be a good distraction for his freak out.

“DON’T let me lie down on your bed,” Yue Lan remarked seriously, before she grinned, “Thanks, Brucie! Are you sure you’re not grabbing any food first?”

Bruce winced as his nausea made itself known again.

Yue Lan saw it, and ran to get a sandwich from the counter. “For later…just in case.”

He was grateful.

Three hours later, with stacks of not only Statistics assignments but also Economics and Quantitative Finance finished, Yue Lan stared at Bruce like he was a _God_. “You’re so _brilliant,_ Bruce,” she spoke reverently, “Why aren’t you in college!?”

Bruce couldn’t help but wince at the word _brilliant_. He ducked his head before she could catch it. “I dropped out of high school.”

“So take GED!” Yue Lan replied quickly, her tone incredulous. “You’ll ace it, I bet!”

“…I’ll consider it after I give birth-” he gave a noncommittal answer, hoping she would just _drop it please drop it_.

“…Bruce,” her voice was soft and tender as she said his name, a world away from her previous volume, “you have no plans for after you leave the program, haven’t you? Because the world’s a horrible place, not a place worth living for, and you think you’re a scum, a monster-”

“SHUT UP!” Bruce lost it. It was too much, every word she said spot on, hit too close to the heart. He shot up to his feet so quickly his chair toppled backwards. Anger tinged his sight red as he leaned down and slammed his palms on the table, jostling the papers as he heaved, “You, you have no right-”

“You’re always scheduled to meet the psychologist before I do, and Ororo’s face always looked troubled in the beginning of my sessions with her,” Yue Lan spoke calmly, her dark brown eyes trained on Bruce’s, holding his gaze levelly. “I didn’t snoop, Bruce. It just takes one suicidal person to know one.”

The last sentence pierced through the cloud of rage that shrouded Bruce’s mind. “You, suicidal,” he remarked in disbelief.

Yue Lan gave him a self-deprecating smirk. “Let me tell you a story,” her voice grew bitter, “My parents sold me off to the mafia.”

Bruce was stunned.

“Debt, drug addiction,” she sounded detached as she described the situation. “I committed all sorts of sordid crimes while I was with them. Smuggling, prostitution, _murder_.”

Bruce stayed quiet. He didn’t know how to respond.

“Those days, I wished one of the stray bullets would hit me in the head. I wished one of my clients would cut me open and fuck me dead. I failed, _repeatedly_ , to do the job myself. They watched me closely so I couldn’t purposely get caught, so that I couldn’t _stop_ ,” her voice caught in her throat. She took a second to breathe in deeply, composing herself. In a second, her faraway, dead eyes were gone. “It was my first pregnancy that gave me the resolve to change.”

“I didn’t want my child to be raised by them,” she growled, and Bruce could understand. Only an Omega with child could be _fiercer_ than an Alpha with his mate. “So I sold them off to a cop in disguise, somehow, and joined this program.” She stared at her hands when she said it, so Bruce knew she must have simplified the bloodshed a lot.

She fell silent, afterward, brooding, and Bruce felt responsible. “And the baby?” he offered a distraction.

“A healthy Beta female, sent for adoption,” Yue Lan beamed, returning to the person Bruce was used to, “through this program, actually.”

Bruce was speechless.

Yue Lan only had to take one look at him to see the question in his eyes. “I know, I know; I chose to betray the mafia and live with the threat of retaliation, only to give my baby away? It doesn’t make sense, right?” Her dark eyed warmed. “It’s for Cecilia’s own good. I wasn’t ready,” she looked down at the bump she’d been rubbing throughout her sharing, “I’m still not ready.”

Another moment of quiet returned to the room, this time less melancholic.

“…Bruce,” she called his name again, soft and so unbearably fond, “Tell me you don’t believe that kindness still exists in this world. Tell me that when you see those adoptive parents, so willing to give these babies we’re carrying the _world_ , even though they know, they know that we’re criminals, you don’t feel touched. Tell me that when you see those couples, you don’t believe that such happiness, such love can exist in the world.”

Bruce didn’t dare look up to see what face she was making. His voice was small when he said, “I can’t.”

“But you don’t believe you’re worthy,” Yue Lan’s voice carried too much understanding. “Bruce, no one can tell us what we’re worth except ourselves. But Bruce, allow me to say, you’re _so_ worthy,” she sounded exasperated, but Bruce could hear that she genuinely believed it.

Bruce bit his lips. His father’s words came to him. _Monster. Freak_. “But-”

“My own parents _abandoned_ me, Bruce!” It was her turn to stand up and slam her hand on the table. “Tell me you’ve done worst things than me.”

 _I killed my own father_ , Bruce despaired [3], the image of the man slumped against the tombstone, blood dripping to the ground, was burnt to the back of his retinas.

“Anyways, that’s not the point,” Yue Lan said quickly; she must have realised her last sentence had made things worse. She walked around the table and stopped next to him. “Bruce, happiness is within your grasp,” her fingers curled around his arm, warm and solid, “you should reach for it.”

Bruce swallowed thickly. He still had no words to say.

Yue Lan sighed. She began to collect her books and papers, finally giving Bruce the space he needed. Just before she closed the door behind her, she turned. “We accept the love we think we deserve,” she stated firmly with an air of finality, “and you deserve.”

Bruce desperately wanted to believe that.

\----------

At week 16, Dr Hernandez made an amused noise in the back of his throat as he examined Bruce. “The baby’s feeling showy today,” he narrated cheerfully. “Would you like to find out the baby’s gender?”

Bruce watched Raj and Michelle had a staring contest before, of course, Michelle won. She could barely keep herself still in her seat. “Yes, please!” she answered excitedly.

Dr Hernandez squinted at the screen before he smiled. “It’s a boy,” he announced, “Can’t tell whether he’s an Omega or an Alpha yet…and we should check again after week 20, but for now, it’s a boy.”

Bruce couldn’t remember feeling anything in particular. There was even a small wistful thought that he’d hoped it was a girl; all the strong people he knew were women. It was Michelle who leaned so far forward she could topple and gasped. “Oh my God, it’s a boy!” Her eyes were wide. “I can teach him soccer, you can teach him how to woo girls-” she paused thoughtfully, “or other boys, whichever, and he can wear the blue socks your mother knitted-”

Raj was quietly amused by his wife’s babbling, as always, but Bruce could tell he was pleased as punch.

“We’ll name him Yusuf [4]!” Michelle still hadn’t lost her steam. She suddenly turned to Bruce and grasped his hand. “You should come to his christening! You’ll be his godfather, won’t you?”

Suddenly, Bruce’s heart was lodged in his throat. He sent Dr Hernandez a look, and the good doctor quickly made an excuse about retrieving Bruce’s file from his office next door. After he left, Bruce covered Michelle’s hand with his own.

“Michelle,” he stared at her and maintained eye contact, “I wish to not be involved in his life. And if you ever decide to inform him that he’s surrogated, I would really appreciate it if you can keep my identity a secret.” His hands and voice were steady, despite the turmoil in his head.

It was painful to watch Michelle’s expression crumble. “B-but…” she turned to Raj for guidance.

“Mrs Sharma,” Bruce interrupted, “I’m a criminal. I would be in jail, if not for this program.” The reminder made the Beta woman looked like she’d been kicked in the gut, and Bruce was sorry, but this was necessary. His smile was a tad self-deprecating when he continued, “I would rather…Yusuf be…spared the association.”

Raj was staring at Bruce like he understood. He reached out and touched Bruce’s hair, like he used to. The Omega almost choked. “It’s so easy to forget. You’re so angelic,” he murmured, and Michelle nodded gustily. “We’ll respect your wishes. But you shouldn’t let what you did define you, pup.”

Bruce didn’t reply. He let the silence hang until Dr Fernandez returned.

The next time Bruce met the couple, the mood had returned to normal, and they never mentioned it. Bruce was thankful.

\----------

“I’m not giving up the baby!”

Bruce blinked and looked up from the scientific journal he was reading as he waited for his turn to meet the psychologist. The shouting originated from Dr Ororo Munroe’s room. He could hear the psychologist’s soothing lilt, and more shouting (though muffled this time). Eventually, a pregnant young male Omega Bruce had never talked to left the room, one hand curled protectively around his bump, his expression still visibly upset.

Dr Munroe looked exhausted when Bruce sat down in front of her. He let the older Omega rub her eyes and have a moment for herself before she could face him again with a smile. “How are you feeling today, Bruce?”

“I’m fine, Ororo, thank you,” Bruce replied honestly (like most staff in the facility, the psychologist had told him to call her by first name). Aside from the morning sickness, and normal pregnancy pains (backache, swollen ankles, frequent trips to the toilet, and some crazy cravings), Bruce didn’t have any medical issues. “The baby’s healthy and behaving well.” Bruce felt a flutter in his stomach, as though Yusuf (the baby had been confirmed a boy, an Alpha male) knew he was being talked about. He looked down and smiled.

Dr Munroe nodded. “How are visits with Mr and Mrs Sharma?” her voice sounded cautious.

“They’ve been talking to the baby regularly, via earphones,” Bruce answered casually. He paused, and made sure he had the psychologist’s attention before he spoke again. “You needn’t worry about me, Ororo. I’m perfectly willing to hand over the baby to Raj and Michelle.”

(Truth is, since the beginning, Bruce had never thought of Yusuf as his.)

The psychologist spent the next twenty minutes asking questions to ensure Bruce really understood and meant what he said, and to dig for the motivation behind his decision. Bruce wasn’t too helpful with regards to the latter.

On the way back to his quarter, Bruce ran into Yue Lan, who was waving a Beta male and female couple goodbye. The two didn’t really pay attention to her; they were too busy staring at a precious pink bundle in their arms.

Bruce watched the perfectly calm and contented smile on the Asian American’s face for a while before he let his presence known. “The adoptive parents?”

“Scott and Jean [5],” Yue Lan sighed happily, “they love Marie so much.” Bruce let the older Omega curl her hand around his elbow and lay her head on his shoulder. “The sheer joy on their faces when their family’s finally whole…I think of myself very lucky, to be part of that.”

Three months later, after the surgery, Bruce watched Raj and Michelle bent over the thick tufts of dark-haired curls on Yusuf’s head, and understood what she meant.

Bruce felt like he finally had a purpose in his life.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I know probably in normal pregnancies expecting mothers don’t go for ultrasound this often…but SHIELD facility has the machine and the doctor, and since the program is at trial stage it’s imperative that nothing wrong happens so that it can be implemented state-wide in the future, so why not weekly scans?  
> 2\. The year should be 1990 at this point in time, and GPS wasn’t fully operational until 1994, but let’s say the military let SHIELD borrow a prototype.  
> 3\. I haven’t read the Incredible Hulk comics, but from other fics I read that’s how Brian Banner died.  
> 4\. Yusuf, from Inception. He has fluffy hair, he’s Indian, and he’s a brilliant chemist, so ;).  
> 5\. From X-men? Totally.
> 
> P.S. I'm sorry, no Tony in this chapter yet (he'll be in chapter 4, or even chapter 3). I'm sorry if things move slowly as well (and if there are too many OCs). Things will speed up a little soon.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time Tony met Bruce, the Omega was heavy with someone else’s pup.

They were at a café a couple of blocks away from Columbia University [1], where Tony was going to spend his next three months. Not Starbucks, no, just a hole in the wall the leggy law student blonde bombshell in Tony’s bed recommended yesterday night, their brief ‘pillow talk’.

But the round-eyed curly-haired (attractive) man who was furrowing his brows (cutely) at the set of notes on the table in front of him was unlike any typical ‘glowing’ pregnant Omega Tony’d seen. He looked somewhat content, of course, hard not to with that much endorphins flowing in his bloodstream, but there was a set of tension in the way he carried himself, somehow. A kind of weariness that only someone who’d gone through a _lot_ could have.

But that was the only observation Tony could make, before that sonofabitch congenital heart disease brought him to his back on the café’s wooden floor.

Tony could make out the noises of panic as people began to gather around him, including that pregnant Omega. “Excuse me,” the Alpha could hear his baritone voice, so smooth in cadence, as he waddled toward Tony and parted through the crowd despite his girth. “I’m a medical student. Excuse me.”

Tony clutched at his chest with one shaking hand while his other reached for his jeans. “P-po-pocket de-defibrillat-”

He passed out before he could finish his sentence.

\----------

Bruce was restless.

It’s been five months since he’d given birth to Yusuf, and he still hadn’t felt the telltale of a heat yet.

“It’s a good chance to take a rest,” Dr Erskine mentioned when Bruce brought it up as nonchalantly as he could. “Find something to do. Go to town, or something,” he smiled encouragingly. “I’ll have you fitted with the GPS as soon as you want to.”

“Take the goddamned GED and SATs!” Yue Lan had been needling him every day since Bruce recovered from the surgery, the female Omega already pregnant again. It took male Omegas longer to bounce back from pregnancy because mostly, they could only deliver through C-section. Most Omega males shouldn’t carry their children to full term because their bone structure and birth canals aren’t designed for larger infants.

“You said you were going to take them after you gave birth,” she whined. Bruce must be a masochist. He continued helping her with her studies at least once a week, though he couldn’t really help her with Humanities-based modules like Management or Organizational Behavior. He was crap at those.

“It’s been months!” she hissed.

“I said I would consider it, not take them,” Bruce repeated, forcing himself to stay calm. It was becoming annoying.

“Brucie!” Yue Lan looked equally pissed. “It’ll help pass the time, at least,” she sighed.

It turned out, in a battle of will between the two Omegas, Yue Lan beat Bruce hands down. On the sixth month after Yusuf's birth, Bruce signed up for GED and SATs on the last possible deadline, just to shut her up, because really, what was his chances of doing well with such little time to study? Somehow, though, he aced them.

Yue Lan managed to get Peggy (who’d mostly forgiven her now), some of the staff and some of Bruce’s Alpha friends (however few they were) together to throw Bruce a mini celebratory dinner. When Bruce protested, she’d rebutted, “This is also for everyone, Brucie. We all want better food than the cafeteria menu, once in a while,” and he backed down.

“You did _so well_ ,” the Asian American admired the test results she’d actually framed.

“Dude,” Rick’s eyes turned wide when they landed on the scores. “With near perfect scores like these, you can try for NYU or Columbia!”

“That’s a great idea!” Yue Lan beamed at Rick and Bruce. “You should try, Bruce! Never try, never know!”

There was no alcohol on the table (because many Omegas there were at different stages of pregnancy), but most of the people were pleased as punch from the catering, including Bruce. And he knew better than to contest Yue Lan in a battle of will again. “Ok,” he agreed, “I’ll try.”

So Bruce applied for their faculty of science, because he liked physics, and he didn’t think too far about whether he would be employable or not. (Honestly, Bruce didn’t think he would live that long.) It was unlikely those universities would accept him anyways. He had no good track records in sports, never been a president of a club or won any competitions.

But NYU did. And awarded him a partial scholarship, to top it off.

And that was how Bruce found himself in the same class(es) with Betty Ross.

\----------

Bruce…actually liked university.

There was so much to learn. He was forced to keep his mind active, freeing him from the bleak and miserable loops his brain talked itself into just because _there was nothing to do_.

Bruce didn’t realize how bored he’d been until he was busy with studying and thoroughly loving it.

There were very few other Omegas in the cohort, and Betty Ross was one of them. In the first lecture of _Physics I_ Bruce attended, he’d sat at the back row by himself, overwhelmed by the amount of unfamiliar faces and not wanting to attract any attention. A pretty brunette arrived in the large open space a few minutes after Bruce, her long straight dark hair clipped to a ponytail. Her blue eyes zeroed in on him immediately and she walked toward him without any hesitation.

“Hi,” she smiled at him the moment she sat behind the wooden table next to him. “I’m Betty.”

“Hi,” Bruce returned the greeting politely, “Bruce.”

Her smile widened. “I’m so relieved. I thought I was going to be the only Omega.”

“Well…Omegas aren’t dumb, despite what the rest say,” Bruce tried, tentatively, and when she chuckled, the tension along Bruce’s spine disintegrated.

They ended up as lab partners in _Introductory Experimental Physics I._ And tutorial mates in _20th Century Concepts of Space, Time, and Matter_  [2].

\----------

Nine months after Yusuf was born (the Sharmas kept their promises and didn’t send any baby photos, thank Goodness), Bruce began to feel the telltale of an oncoming heat. He compelled Dr Erskine to assign him an Alpha match.

The bearded man complied very, very reluctantly. “You should at least skip a heat,” he recommended.

“It’s been nine months, Dr Erskine. My body has had plenty of time to rest,” Bruce insisted. He was hyper aware of just how much money the program was supplying NYU for his tuition, despite the scholarship. The textbooks were also very expensive. Bruce needed to earn his keep.

They assigned him to Rick Jones, because they had little time to work with and Rick was someone Bruce was familiar with.

 “S’cool,” the Alpha grinned at Bruce during a pre-heat meet-up. “We’re friends. We’ll stay friends.”

The heat was one of the mildest Bruce had experienced, and Bruce woke up after two days feeling content and sure that fertilization had occurred.

But that was the last easy thing about this pregnancy.

\----------

“What’s the bracelet for?” Betty asked after they knew each other for three months. They were study buddies now, preparing for exams in the quiet of the library. Back at the facility, Yue Lan sulked; she complained that Bruce didn’t want to spend time with her anymore, but secretly, he knew she was happy for him.

Bruce considered withholding the truth for a while before he decided against it. After the winter break, Bruce would return to school visibly pregnant; the truth had to come out, one way or another. “I’m part of the Safe and Healthy Impregnation, Embryogenesis, Labor & Delivery program,” he confessed. “The bracelet has a GPS to track where I am.”

The program had existed successfully for four years now, thereabouts, and Dr Erskine had submitted a proposal to the Governor to suggest for statewide-expansion [3]. Due to the controversial nature of the program, it had enjoyed a little public debate a couple of months ago.

Light dawned on Betty. “You’re part of SHIELD,” she repeated. That was the acronym the public came up with during that debate, tired of having to say the full name. Dr Erskine had been very amused, and joked that he might actually adopt it for good. “You’re…” she grew pensive.

Bruce waited with bated breath, his entire body still as a statue. It had come to light that most Omega participants of the trial program were found guilty of crimes and joined the program to avoid sentencing. Betty would put two and two together and realize who he really was. To top it off, she might not stand someone willing to lend his womb for money.

When she looked up, her eyes had a soft edge to them instead. Her tiny hands reached out to hold his between them. “I ran away from home,” Betty mumbled quietly. Somehow, this had turned into a mutual confession. “My father won’t accept that I want to study Physics, instead of just marrying one of his subordinates. He’s in the Army,” she added. “It must be hard for you, having nowhere to go and no one to depend on.”

The simple acceptance caused relief to flood into Bruce and he slumped against the other Omega, his face pressed to her shoulder. “Thank you,” he said shakily. His eyes were dry, but if Betty thought he was crying, she didn’t mention anything. She only wrapped her free arm around him, and held him close.

(And that, perhaps, was precisely the moment Bruce started falling for her.)

\----------

There was nothing right about Bruce’s second pregnancy.

He couldn’t stop vomiting. It was difficult to sleep because Bruce was blindsided by severe headaches that came out of nowhere. Sometimes, there were spots of blood in his underpants. He often felt dizzy; he’d fainted five times by his third month. Dr Hernandez and Dr Erskine were worried about him, because his skin looked grey and his eye bags were so dark Yue Lan had taken to calling him a panda, when she wasn’t mothering him. Even Peggy was willing to team up with Yue Lan to make sure Bruce took care of himself, despite the finals in university.

His cohort didn’t react kindly when he showed up to the first lecture of _Sound and Music_ with a six-month baby bump. They weren’t crude; there were no catcalls and offensive nicknames and things like, ‘Spent the holiday on your back with your legs in the air, darling?’ or ‘My, someone’s been busy’ thrown in the hallways. But Bruce could feel the stares, hear the murmurs, the fingers pointing at his back. To them he was the stereotypical Omega, who couldn’t help himself in heat, forgot his pills and got himself knocked up.

Bruce ignored them; it wasn’t as bad as high school. They continued for a few days until before the start of a lecture of _Physics II_ , the lecture with the largest attendance, where Betty, who’d been looking angry and frustrated since yesterday, rose to her feet and slammed her hands to the wooden table. “Stop talking behind his back!” she said sharply.

Betty wasn’t shouting, but the lecture theatre was designed to project sound. After she spoke, everyone in the room fell silent.

Bruce winced. “Betty,” he whispered, reaching out for her.

“No, Bruce,” her voice only got louder, “they need to know that you’re doing this for the country, so that a childless couple out there can adopt your baby and complete their family, while they mock you ignorantly, and contributes _nothing_.”

The whole class heard that. Bruce could see someone mouth, ‘SHIELD,’ to his desk mate.

Bruce refrained from smacking his face. He knew she meant well. “Betty, it’s all right.”

“No, it’s not,” her volume finally lowered. She bent down over him and held his face by both hands. “And it worries me that you think it is,” as she spoke, she gazed right at him.

Bruce didn’t know what to say. As if right on cue, the Professor entered the theatre and began the lecture.

The moment was gone.

\----------

Somewhere at the beginning of his 25th week, Bruce’s face, hands and feet began to swell. There were heartburns, and Bruce was always so fucking tired.

“You are experiencing severe pre-eclampsia,” Dr Hernandez sounded troubled. “We should try to lower your blood pressure. May be you shouldn’t attend classes for a while.”

Bruce could only nod weakly. Betty had been making similar suggestions all week.

One day, there were cramps on his lower belly. Serious, piercing cramps that caused his legs to collapse. And blood, trickling to his thighs.

Bruce panicked and did something he’d never done for years: call for help.

Dr Hernandez and Dr Erskine looked very, very concerned as they stood over Bruce. “We need to take the baby out,” the former said.

Bruce shook his head. “It’s too early.”

“The baby will die inside you if we don’t,” Dr Erskine remarked bluntly.

Dr Hernandez groaned when Bruce froze in fear. “He’s right, Bruce,” he patted the Omega and tried to reassure him. “We need to bring you under now.”

Bruce felt hands positioning him to his side, and the small of his back exposed, before the sting of a needle pierced through his skin.

The world faded to black [4].

\----------

Nina was a tiny thing, a beautiful Omega female with Rick’s hair and freckles, and Bruce’s nose, and horrendously pre-mature.

She was placed in the incubator immediately, fighting for her life with her underdeveloped lungs, underdeveloped heart, underdeveloped _everything_ , for four days _._

(They lost her, in the end.)

\----------

Like Yusuf, Bruce had never thought of Nina as his since the beginning.

But the loss was very, very painful to him, a gaping _ache_ where his heart was, the desire to scream starting deep in his gut. His chest felt heavy and full, close to bursting, and it wasn’t just because of his breast milk, ready to be pumped, packed in bottles and sent to the adoptive parents. Bruce’s physiology was still convinced there was a baby to be fed _when there was none_ , and every time Bruce was reminded of this, he clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white.

Piotr and Anne, Nina’s supposed parents, were devastated. They huddled close to each other during the funeral, sobbing every time they caught a glimpse of the small coffin. But Bruce wanted to claw his eyes out, wanted to trade his life for hers if he could.

He was mad with grief, a blanket of numbness the only way he could go on.

Bruce returned to NYU after a one-week absence during the impossible Assessment week with a flat stomach and shadows on his face.

Betty took one look, and understood. She guided him to an abandoned classroom, locked the door, and wrapped him in her arms. “It’s not your fault,” she whispered.

The dam that held Bruce’s tears broke, and for the first time since the line that represented Nina’s heartbeat went flat, he finally let himself fall apart. He crumpled against her, clutching her tightly like a lifeline, and howled, the sound trapped in the wools of Betty’s sweater. “You’re wrong,” he told her, his voice hoarse and so, so brittle, “it was my fault. I was the one who insisted to have her, despite the doctor’s warnings, despite their recommendation to skip a heat. My body wasn’t ready to carry her. I _killed_ her, Betty!” He roared, the sound so animalistic it was almost inhumane.

_Another life in his hands. Monster._

“Ssshh,” Betty kept on holding him, “you couldn’t have known.”

“No!” Bruce began to struggle. “Betty-”

He had way more muscle-mass than her, but Betty’s determination was stronger. Again, she held his face firmly in front of hers. “You didn’t smoke, you didn’t get drunk, you didn’t take drugs, and you didn’t fuck around. You were _careful_ ,” she emphasized on her last word. “You never intended to harm her. It’s _not_ your fault.” Her gaze softened a little with sadness. She pressed her temple against his and gently, tenderly wiped his tears with her small thumbs. “She was just not meant to be.”

They stared at each other for an eternity, Betty’s hands the only anchor grounding him to reality. Neither knew who made the first move. Bruce closed his eyes and found his lips pressed against Betty’s in a chaste kiss, their first kiss tasted of hope and salty with tears.

(But they didn’t last.)

\----------

Life was beautiful, for a while.

Not much of their routines changed, but there were more intimate touches, fond gazes, cuddling in the sofa, hushed conversations in bed, kisses on his cheeks and lips. Things Bruce had only dreamt of. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was, to have a strong, sweet, beautiful Omega such as Betty choose _him_.

(Sometimes, sometimes, her presence wasn’t enough to quell the emptiness Nina had left in Bruce. But when shadows appeared in his eyes, Betty only kissed his eyelids and waited patiently for him to come back to her.)

However, their relationship was doomed from the start.

The society could understand why an Alpha would date a Beta, or even another Alpha. There were simply not enough Omegas to go around [5]. For that reason, people often looked at Omega Beta couples with disapproval, but they could still understand. Sometimes Alphas could be too dominant, too aggressive, and Omegas who was uncomfortable with that power imbalance should be allowed to choose to be with calm, rational, hardworking Betas, and anyways, Omega Beta couples could still have children, if they try hard enough.

(And in a society with dwindling population such as theirs, having children is of utmost importance.)

But the society wouldn’t look at Omega couples kindly; they were bestowed with the same disgust as incestuous relationships. Not only could they not have children together, they made fewer Omegas available to the rest of the population. The society actively encouraged breaking such couples apart.

So that was why, the moment the rest of the cohort realized Bruce and Betty were a thing – and it didn’t take them long; Betty refused to hide the relationship, despite Bruce’s concerns, insisting that they hold hands and share kisses in plain view because ‘No one should live in fear!’ – the news spread like wildfire. No one treated them nicely anymore. Even some of the teachers became biased.

Then, over the summer…Betty vanished.

Betty and Bruce agreed to enroll in special terms during the summer to accelerate their degree. They parted for a few days after the finals…and when they were scheduled to have a lecture together, she just didn’t show up.

At first, Bruce just thought she was sick. He dropped by her apartment after classes (he’d spent three days there accompanying Betty during her heat; staring at certain spots in the living room made Bruce blush), but she was conspicuously absent. Her belongings were strewn all over the place – an opened novel turned upside down on the coffee table, a discarded sweater on the coverlet; Betty must be out for an errand, so Bruce decided to wait.  

Come nightfall, Bruce had seen neither hide nor hair of Betty, and he was alarmed.

He called the police, he checked hospitals in the area (they never talked about assigning each other as emergency contact), he talked with the neighbours, he called her acquaintances (they didn’t exactly have many friends, aside from each other), he did _everything_ he could.

But Bruce still couldn’t find her.

He returned to the facility for his scheduled counseling session reluctantly. Dr Munroe picked up on Bruce’s anxieties right away. “What’s wrong, Bruce?” the white-haired woman asked concernedly.

Bruce internally debated whether he should bother Dr Munroe with his issue or not before he finally blurted, “My friend’s missing.”

It ended up becoming some sort of police investigation, Bruce answering various questions Dr Munroe posed about Betty’s background and habits. After half an hour, the psychologist sat back and placed her chin on her hand, her brows furrowed in thought. “You said her father is in the Army.”

Bruce nodded. “That’s what she said.”

“Elizabeth Ross…” As she murmured, her dark eyes widened, as though she’d remembered something. “Dr Erskine may have the contact of her father.”

Bruce almost ran to SHIELD’s Project Leader’s office.

“General Thaddeus E. ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross?” Dr Erskine looked up from the stack of papers he’d been frowning at before wrinkling his nose at Bruce. “Why would you want to talk to that sour-looking man?” he spoke candidly, as he always did.

Bruce rubbed his hands together, a nervous tick. “My friend is missing, and he could be her father.”

Dr Erskine passed the Omega what seemed to be a pitying look before he rummaged through his address book. He handed Bruce two numbers. “His landline and his office. Try the second one first,” he patted the back of the younger man’s hand.

Bruce did. It turned out the General had been transferred; Bruce was rerouted repeatedly and had to argue with several secretaries who sounded skeptical about his intentions until he finally reached the General’s personal assistant. “Who is this?” a stern but polite male voice asked, “May I know the purpose of your call?”

“Hi, I’m Bruce Banner. Uh…Elizabeth Ross, the General’s daughter, is my friend and she’s missi-”

Before Bruce could complete the sentence, it sounded like the phone was yanked out of the PA’s grip.

“I know what you did to your old man, _monster,_ ” the voice that replaced his was fierce and filled with revulsion, animosity dripping off each syllable. “My daughter is none of your concern. If you ever set your eyes on her again, I will make sure you rot in jail!” The line was cut off abruptly.

Bruce stared dumbly at the phone in his hand, shell-shocked, angry and petrified. _How did he know?_ Brian Banner’s death had been declared a drunken accident. _How did he **know**?_

(Later, he found out that that General Ross, that bastard, had kidnapped his own daughter, and forced her to mate and bond with his right-hand man, Major Glenn Talbot. With child and wary of her father’s threat, Betty did not fight. She did, however, manage to get a kind stranger to send a letter to Bruce without her father’s knowledge.

 _I’m fine,_ it said, _it’s not your fault._ Typical of her. Then, _I know what my father knows, and I don’t think of you any less. I love you, Bruce. I’m really sorry we can’t see each other in a while. Wishing you all the happiness in the world (because you so deserve them, dear), Betty._

Bruce blinked profusely, his chest tight and his eyes watery.

Despite his best efforts, it was a relationship that began and ended in tears.)

\----------

In the span of one year, Bruce had lost nearly _everything_ good that had happened to him.

Four months after what was dubbed as the _tragedy_ in Bruce’s memories, the Omega felt another telltale of a heat. This time, when Dr Hernandez and Dr Erskine told Bruce to skip it, he obeyed them.

“In fact,” Dr Hernandez added, “It’s probably best for you to rest a full year.”

The thought of free-riding them for a year made Bruce’s stomach churn, but he kept his mouth shut. It was for the best.

He cancelled his special terms and intended to spend the rest of his summer moping. Yue Lan has spent days nagging him from outside his door, her voice ranging from whiny, to angry, to desperate.

Until one day, Peggy intervened. “Open this door, lad, or I’ll shoot it down.” Her voice sounded serious.

Bruce’s heart was lodged in his throat. “You don’t have a gun,” he replied loudly, to be heard on the other side.

“Try me,” she said drily.

Peggy never joked. Adrenaline coursed through Bruce’s blood, piercing through the haze of misery that had clouded him for days, as he rushed to let her in.

The brown-haired Omega waddled in with dignity, despite being heavily pregnant, and gave Bruce a sharp sideway glance as she passed. Yue Lan hovered on the doorway, but she didn’t step in. A look passed between Peggy and the Asian American before the latter left with a weak smile.

Bruce stared at her retreat in disbelief. _Since when did they become this close!?_

“Sit down, lad,” Peggy commanded as she settled on one of _his_ chair, but Bruce couldn’t help but follow the order. The older Omega had a very compelling aura.

Peggy didn’t say anything in a while. Bruce followed her silence until she finally sighed, and opened her rouged lips. “I know how difficult it can be,” her brown eyes demanded that Bruce paid attention to her. “I…once lost someone very dear to me in a war.” The skin over her throat rippled, as though she was resisting the urge to gulp. “You…probably feel like life loses its meaning, or you see them everywhere you look,” Peggy reached out to hold Bruce’s hand, steady as her voice and her gaze. “It’s hard, but it will pass. You _should_ let it pass.”

Bruce was…touched. Baring herself open like this, to Bruce, must have taken a lot from her. So, instead of ignoring advices and attempts to help like he’d done for the past few weeks, he let her in. “…How?” he asked brokenly.

“It’s different for everyone. Talking about it sometimes help, sometimes doesn’t,” Peggy mentioned, and this was what Bruce liked about her; she was always honest, never sugarcoating. “I do find that, indeed, ‘time heals all wounds,’ so keeping yourself distracted helps. Finding a new purpose in life, too.”

A purpose in life. Almost two years ago, during Yusuf’s birth, Bruce was convinced his was to complete families. Just because he’d lost Nina, and couldn’t have another baby for another eight months, didn’t mean he’d lost the ability to complete families.

And Bruce hadn’t lost everything, not exactly.

So, come next fall, Bruce studied like a madman, devoting most of his time to his academic curiosity. He kept acquaintances – an occasional lab partner, a study group, and so on, but he didn’t befriend anyone.

Bruce found this new lifestyle, this focus on his work, was better for his psyche. He became less prone to disappointment, less emotional, calmer.

In his third and final year of accelerated undergraduate studies, Bruce was declared safe to try pregnancy again. His assigned Alpha match was Lee Min-Jun, a well-mannered, rather unassuming Korean American Computer Science PhD student. The pregnancy was a brisk this time, less troublesome than his first, even, and after slightly less than nine months, Bruce, now a graduate, watched baby Omega Amadeus being held by his adoptive parents, Miki and Greg Cho, with a serene smile on his face.  

When his contract was up, Bruce willingly signed another five-year contract with SHIELD. The program had expanded; they had moved to another compound – the Pegasus – and were not as hard-pressed for Omegas as they did back them, but Bruce was still welcome with open arms.

Yue Lan and Peggy, however, decided to leave the program. As the Chinese American gave him a bear hug, her eyes shiny, she told Bruce to go for Grad school, ‘coz, otherwise, it’s a damn waste for your brain.’

To honor her, Bruce decided to give it proper consideration, and realised that he did want to go for Grad school. He wanted to study Medicine, to know his body better, so that no more _tragedies_ could occur. He studied hard again, aced his MCAT, and got himself a place in Columbia University.

Yue Lan and Peggy’s departure left a gaping hole much bigger than Bruce had thought, but he stuck to his principles and didn’t let anyone get close.

Until Tony.

\----------

Tony opened his eyes to find himself in the sterile, white environment that was a hospital ward. The Alpha huffed; his hatred for hospitals could be expressed in _pages._

“Mr Stark,” Tony mustn’t have been out long. His doctor of the day, it seemed, was still talking to that curly-haired round-eyed Omega, who must have been describing what happened to the nondescript middle-aged old man in the white coat. “How are you feeling?”

“None the worse for wear,” he said quickly. Tony always spoke fast anyways. And when he spied the Omega slinking out of the room, he yelled, “Hey, you, don’t leave! Also, what’s your name?”

The pregnant Omega blinked at him. He was so goddamned adorable, in his rumpled tweed jacket and purple shirt of sex. _Like a human-teddy bear,_ Tony thought, and despite being the one in hospital bed, he wanted to wrap his arms around that guy and shield him from whatever had caused those brown eyes to have that trace of perpetual weariness. Must be his Alpha instincts.

“Um…Bruce. Bruce Banner,” the Omega ended up complying. “Uh, I need to go to cla-”

“You should leave me your contact details,” Tony interrupted, “Coz I’m anything but ungrateful, and you saved my life.”

Bruce looked uncomfortable. “Really, I-”

“I insist,” Tony blundered. He did tend to bulldoze through most social interactions.

They had a staring contest for a while (rather, Tony stared insistently at Bruce, who looked down, and twitched) before Bruce sighed and took out a notepad. He scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to Tony.

The address, Tony realised, was that of the Pegasus compound. Now that Tony was looking for it, he noticed the silver bracelet around the Omega’s wrist.

 _So Bruce is part of SHIELD._ Tony’d read about it because Pepper was interested in it. An unfathomable sense of relief washed over him. _~~There’s an off-chance he’s not a bonded, spoken-for Omega~~._

“I’m Tony Stark,” he said after he had the paper in his hand. Kind of rude not to introduce himself back.

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Kind of not hard to figure out,” he said drily, and Tony inhaled sharply, partly surprised that the skittish-looking Omega was capable of being sarcastic, partly expecting sentences like, ‘I saw you on TV’ or ‘Your father is the founder of Stark Industries’ to follow.

But what Bruce said next was, “I follow your work on the arc reactor. Brilliant alternative energy source.” He smiled. “My pre-med was Physics,” he said by way of explanation.

And Tony just _knew_ that Bruce was going to be a permanent fixture in his life _._

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I’ve never been to Columbia University. Hell, I’ve never been to New York. I don’t know how places look like.  
> 2\. The list of courses at NYU found here: http://physics.as.nyu.edu/page/undergrad  
> 3\. I know nothing about such processes…whether this requires legislation or just like a business/research license. Anyone who does, please enlighten me :)  
> 4\. Spinal anesthetic allow surgery to be performed with the patient wide awake, but here Bruce either was sedated to keep him not panicky, or passed out, whichever explanation you want.  
> 5\. According to the Punnett squares in ‘The Definition of Perfect’, for every 100 pregnancies, 55 babies will be Betas, 34 Alphas and 11 Omegas. Omegas are naturally genetically rare.


	4. Chapter 4

All his life, Tony Stark had refused to follow anyone’s expectations.

That includes the society’s expectations of an Alpha: settling down, protecting and providing for the family, and so on. Tony has fucked around. Omegas, Betas (male and female ones, both), and even other Alphas. He’d never once wanted to marry and have kids and live in a mansion (though technically he’d done the last one).

So it wasn’t surprising that when Tony met Bruce again, the first thing that crossed his mind was: _Man, how would fucking a pregnant Omega feel?_  

Hey, he’d read that pregnant sex was amazing, okay. And he’d never actually had a chance to try it, so yeah.

Not that Bruce would ever be just his one-night-conquests, if mating were ever to happen. The Omega’s mind was _stunning_.

“Are you sure you’re just a pre-clinical student?” Tony said in awe after the two of them stumbled into a long and fruitful discussion on the artificial heart Tony was designing (y’know, just in case). Tony was amazed; Bruce could work so well with him, understanding Tony’s words without the engineer having to water down his explanations, and even challenging some of his assumptions and suggesting theories for improvement. Tony hadn’t been able to talk to someone like this out of a conference, and someone still _young_ at that.

Bruce shrugged. “I studied a little Biochemistry in my pre-med as well,” he admitted bashfully.

Tony read between the lines. “Double majors?” he whistled. “Why, Mr Banner, you’re a _genius_ ,” he purred the last word like it was the sexiest, filthiest thing on earth.

(So what if Tony’s flirting? Tony flirts with everyone.)

The word, though, had the opposite effect on Bruce. The pregnant Omega looked like he was visibly restraining himself from frowning, for a second. His expression settled into a smile. “Thanks,” he mentioned with a tight nod.

Tony took note of the expression. “Oh my, look at the time,” he said absently as he glanced at the clock in the lab, “I called you here to treat you for dinner, but I ended up delaying your meal.”

“It’s all right,” this time, Bruce’s smile looked more genuine. “I enjoyed the conversation we had.”

 _Scored!_ Tony thought, and he grinned. “That’s great! What do you want to eat?”

Bruce raised his eyebrows. “Um…I don’t think any places are still open at this hour…and I really should start making my way home if I were to catch the bus-”

“Pssh,” Tony waved a hand dismissively, “The concept of opening and closing hours don’t work with me. And please, let me drive you back to the Pegasus.”

Any other dates Tony had had (not that Tony had ever invited any of them to his lab) would be impressed with his careless display of wealth, either quietly or very visibly (except Pepper and Rhodey; they just rolled their eyes), but Bruce’s shoulders were hunched instead, as though he was in extreme discomfort. “Really, I don’t want to trouble you,” the Omega rubbed his hands as he spoke, “I can pick up a sandwich on my way back.”

“No, no, no,” Tony tutted. Once was enough, honestly, but Tony couldn’t care less. “Pregnant Omegas need nutrients.” A handy excuse and hey, based on Science! “Besides, do I look troubled?” he raised his eyebrow and gestured at himself, “I will be more troubled at the thought of sending a pregnant Omega home alone this late at night.” To signal that he wasn’t a chauvinistic pig, Tony winked.

Bruce breathed out through his nose, the exhale sounding suspiciously like a sigh. He closed his eyes for two seconds, before he nodded. “Okay.”

Tony brightened, his grin so wide Bruce must be wondering whether his face hurt. No matter. He spread his arm across Bruce’s back and draped it on his shoulder. “Let’s get moving, then!”

The Omega froze under Tony’s touch, his frame and muscles rigid as the playboy billionaire genius philanthropist steered the other man out of the lab. After ten minutes, Bruce had barely relaxed, so Tony let go the moment they had entered the garage.

“Which is it, baby?” he smirked proudly as Bruce laid eyes on his automobile collection. Finally, there was quiet awe in those warm brown eyes.

“Um, I d-don’t really…” he stammered, but Tony noticed that his companion’s eyes were kind of glued on the Acura NSX Roadster [1]. Naturally, he strutted there, and Bruce followed.

Dinner was sushi and salad, with sake for Tony and Emperor Sencha for Bruce. Conversations flowed easily between them; Tony could talk about anything when he was required to – he’d learned how to charm shareholders and the press since he was a teenager – but he didn’t really need to put in any effort here. Bruce read scientific and medical journals avidly. There were a lot of topics they could cover.

It wasn’t a surprise to Tony that when he pulled over the lobby of the Pegasus, the digits on his watch said it was nearly 2 a.m. “I hope you don’t have classes early tomorrow morning,” he said as the Omega exited the car.

“I don’t, thankfully,” Bruce replied as Tony leaned over the convertible.

“It’s been fun,” the Alpha couldn’t resist the grin that had threatened to take over his face. “Till next time? How about shawarma? I don’t know what it is, but I want to try it.” Ugh, someone stop Tony from babbling, please.

Bruce’s answer was silence and a smile.

Before Tony could make out what that expression meant, the Omega had already turned around and disappeared behind the front doors.

\----------

Tony had never wooed anyone who didn’t want him.

Oh, there were women who played hard-to-get, of course, alphas and beta males who pretended to be strictly straight and actresses who pretended to be impervious to his charm so that he would be intrigued with them and send them romantic, _expensive_ gifts to win them over.

Those people only had their tactic backfire on them, because Tony Stark didn’t waste time with people who play games with him.

The third time Bruce returned Tony’s gifts (flowers, chocolates and a _scanning electron microscope_ for goodness sake) by mailing them back to the Stark Tower (Tony so regretted having brought Bruce there), and the umpteenth time he’d turned down Tony’s invitations, however, Tony was _hoping_ that Bruce was just playing hard-to-get.

It was preferable to the sinking feeling that Bruce never wanted to see him again.

As the billionaire walked down the street to Columbia (instead of driving one of his babies), asking himself _why, why, why_ , lo and behold, the dark-haired pregnant Omega was sitting alone at a café across the road, one leg shaking and his hands persistently rubbing each other.

Thoughtlessly, Tony made his way to the café and plopped himself to one of the empty chairs at his table. “Fancy meeting you here!” he grinned, using the cheerfulness to hide his confusion.

Bruce jumped out of his skin. “Stark,” he stated breathlessly, one hand holding his chest as he heaved, his eyes wide. Instead of asking the billionaire ‘what are you doing here?’ Bruce continued, “Stark, uh, I’m expecting someone, so could you please…?”

“Oh,” Tony said blankly, the organ beating behind his ribcage rising to his throat and starting to _ache_. He didn’t want to examine the feeling closely, if at all. “S-sure, I’ll-”

“Bruce Banner?” Before Tony could make his retreat, Bruce’s…date had arrived. Tony half turned, and saw, from the corner of his eyes…two Betas standing beside their table, a stern-looking bespectacled woman with short blonde hair and a pretty blue-eyed redhead with a friendly smile. “Hi!” the latter offered her hand, “I’m Jules, and she’s Nic. Pleased to meet you!” [2]

Tony blinked. ‘ _Wow, a threesome?_ ’ was his first incredulous thought. Then, ‘ _Why would Bruce want to date two Beta females who don’t have the tools to help him pass through his heats?’_   

Bruce rose to his feet, ignorant to Tony’s surprise, and shook the women’s hands. “Hi. Pleasure’s all mine. Please sit down…I’m sorry for requesting to meet here…I haven’t been able to reach the Pegasus before midnight lately.”

“Oh, psshh,” Jules waved her hand dismissively as the two women sat down. “It’s okay. We understand. Nic has been busy as well. She’s an obstetrician. You’re a medical student, right?” Boy, that woman was talkative.

Nic, on the other hand, was paying attention to the Alpha’s side profile which was visible to her. “You’re Tony Stark,” her eyes were wide.

Jules turned to him and gasped, as though she just noticed he was there. “Oh my God, you’re right! He’s Tony Stark!” she covered her gaping jaw with a hand.

“Are you the…Alpha donor?” Nic frowned, “Is it common procedure?”

 _Alpha donor?_ Tony frowned inwardly.

“Oh my God, Tony Stark is the biological father of our adoptive child?” Jules exclaimed, her pitch high and thin.

 _Oh._ Suddenly, everything made sense.

Bruce, his cheeks and neck flushed a pretty shade of red, shook his head vehemently. “Oh, no, he’s not. The Alpha donor is Patrick Eriksson, a Detective Sergeant at NYPD. His profile is available for your viewing,” he explained, and gave Tony a quick glance before he continued, “Stark is…a classmate at Columbia. He just happens to be here.”

 _Ouch_. Tony decided to dramatically showcase his pain. “Bruce, I thought we’re closer than that!” He clutched at his heart and pouted.

Bruce grew impossibly redder, while Jules laughed. “We’ll be quick, then,” her eyes twinkled as she shared a look with her spouse.

Tony sat through lunch with them as Bruce and the Allgood couple scheduled future meetings at the Pegasus, for either Jules or Nic to sit through Bruce’s ultrasounds or just have an hour weekly to chat with the baby through an earphone, and eventually agreeing on the delivery date. As the discussion went on, Jules and Nic appeared progressively more and more excited.

“Oh, Nic,” Jules said dreamily as conversations pattered to a comfortable silence, “I can scarcely believe it.”

“Me too,” the blonde had a permanent smile on her handsome face, despite having been so nervous at the beginning of the meeting. “We’re finally having a child,” her voice sounded nothing short of reverent.

Tony observed Bruce as he watched the couple with a smile of his own, so content and satisfied with himself, the weariness that normally shrouded him like a second skin gone without a trace.

 _He’s so beautiful,_ the thought came unbidden in Tony’s mind _._ More beautiful than any of the Maxim models the billionaire had had in his bed, this seemingly ordinary twenty-something Omega. Tony was amazed.

(Looking back, Tony realized this was the moment he began to understand the enigma that was the man who would be Robert Bruce Banner-Stark, M.D., and _fall_ for him.)

The meeting ended with Jules waving enthusiastically. “See you next week, Bruce!”

Tony waited until Bruce finished waving at the couple before he spoke again. “That was…something.”

The Omega turned and stared at the Alpha, his dark eyes _searching_ for something Tony knew not what. “Yeah, well,” Bruce ended the probing look, his sentence left hanging, and rose to his feet, “I have class.”

“Let’s have dinner,” Tony blurted before the pregnant Omega could leave, his fingers itching to curl around Bruce’s exposed pale wrists, rubbing a thumb on a visible blue vein. “Tea, supper, _anything_ , after your classes,” this was the first time Tony sounded this desperate.

Bruce’s answer, however, was still the same quiet smile.

\----------

“Why,” Tony slid himself to the empty seat next to Bruce, “do you insist on turning down my invitations?” he frowned.

The curly-haired Omega, who had been quietly reviewing his notes before the lecture began, jumped in shock when he heard Tony’s voice. “Jesus Christ, Stark,” Bruce sighed as his large hands scrubbed his face, “how do you even know I’m here?”

“Lucky guess,” Tony shrugged. After that episode with the Allgood couple, Tony stopped refraining himself from researching all there was to know about Bruce. The schedule of the Omega’s classes was one of the easiest information he could find. Tony didn’t want to resort to stalkerish behaviors, but Bruce had left him with no choice.

Bruce eyed him in disbelief. Tony ignored the look and whined, “So? What is it did you find so repulsive about me?”

“It’s not you,” the Omega sighed again. “You know that you don’t owe me anything anymore, right?”

“So?” It was Tony’s turn to stare at Bruce in disbelief. _Seriously?_ “I like hanging out with you. You’re smart and fun. Come ooon.”

The professor chose this untimely moment to enter the lecture theatre. Tony glared at him.

The billionaire spent the next hour half listening to the balding old man in front of the class ( _Anatomy is interesting enough_ ), half doodling on the edges of Bruce’s notes. The Omega sent Tony one dirty look before ignoring him.

Tony couldn’t help but notice that, in the duration of the sixty-minute lecture, Bruce had reached out for his lower back for a total of fourteen times. _He must be having backaches,_ Tony realized. After all, the Omega looked like he was in his last trimester.

When the professor finally stopped speaking, and the rest of the class were packing up, Tony leaned over to Bruce and whispered, “Do you have class straight after this?”

Bruce squinted at him in suspicion. “…No,” he answered after a while, “I have an hour. I usually spend it in the library.”

Tony knew that. “Hmm,” he leaned even closer, “let me give you a back rub.” He didn’t ask; he demanded.

Bruce blinked and recoiled. “Stark, are you mad?” Fortunately, Tony had the foresight to keep a hand between the Omega’s shoulder blades before he’d made his demand known, to keep him within an arm’s length. “I’ve read that a backrub from an Alpha is effective in easing aches off pregnant Omegas,” as Tony spoke, his tone as clinical and detached as possible, he slid his hand to the small of Bruce’s back, and _pressed_.

Bruce’s mouth fell open, and Tony could swear the Omega was _moaning_ silently.

“So?” Tony beckoned, his fingers hopefully working magic on the tight knots of flesh underneath.

Bruce blinked faster, his cheeks tinged with pink. “O-ok,” he sounded somewhat incoherent, incapable of managing any word beyond two syllables.

Later, on the flat surface of an abandoned couch at a secluded corner of the library, when the Omega turned to putty under Tony’s fingers, the Alpha was _mesmerized_ by every little sound that left Bruce’s lips, and the way his olive skin flushed all over, down to the sliver of flesh between Bruce’s yellow shirttails and brown slacks.

(Tony held on to that image, and wanked to it for weeks.)

Ten minutes before Bruce’s next class, the Alpha helped the pregnant Omega to his feet, and tried his chances again. “Shawarma?”

“Mmm,” languid and completely devoid of tension, Bruce looked as happy as he was, when they ate with the Allgood couple. His smile was a little wider than usual when he finally, finally said, “all right.”

Tony whooped inwardly.

\----------

In the course of his research, Tony had unearthed other information as well, such as the charges pressed against Bruce when he was seventeen, and his subsequent ‘escape’ to SHIELD. His past relationship with Omega Elizabeth Ross. The names of his babies and the families who had adopted them. What happened to Rebecca and Brian Banner.

Honestly, Tony had done worse shit than building a home-made bomb. And so what if Bruce was a suspect in Brian’s ‘murder’? If Tony had a father like that asshole he would murder him too (not that Howard’s A+ parenting hadn’t already inspired some murderous intentions in Tony sometimes).

The second date saw Tony and Bruce in the former’s Candyland of a lab again, the billionaire urging the medical student to put the goddamned scanning electron microscope Tony had purchased to good use. A plate piled high with wraps of various kinds of meat – lamb, chicken, beef, mixed – was perched at the corner of the table, to Bruce’s reluctance (boy, he was _strict_ about safety procedures).

“Wow, look at the myoglobin,” Tony mentioned in awe as he munched at a turkey wrap. The thin stripes were juicy, he thought absently. “The sequence looks so comple-”

Bruce tore his eyes away from the lens when his lab companion made choking sounds, ready to tell the Alpha off, only to inhale sharply in alarm when he saw Tony dropping to his knees with a hand on his chest. “D-damned he-heart-” he wheezed.

“Still in your pocket?” it was fascinating how quickly Bruce could move, despite being so huge. He arranged Tony to lie on his back on the ground and grimaced after he pressed his hand on the billionaire’s chest. “Do you have other meds or contraptions that can correct the tachycardia [3]? Is this a heart attack or a cardiac arrest [4]?”

Tony waved a hand in a dismissive gesture, the lines of his face tense. “Cu-could be ei-” he’d fallen unconscious.

“Shit,” Bruce swore under his breath as his hands worked deftly, pulling Tony’s shirt up to expose his chest and placing the defibrillator at the right points. After one try, Tony’s heart beat normally again, and the Omega sighed in relief. “Stark, I swear you’re going to give me a heart attack one day,” he murmured.

As Bruce waddled to the phone near the lab’s exit to call an ambulance, he heard the Alpha groan and curse from the floor. “Not again…”

“Yes again,” Bruce returned to Tony’s side and checked him best as he could without any medical equipments. “How are you feeling?”

Tony pressed a heel to his eyes. “…peachy,” he grumbled as he tried to get up. He looked down, finally noticing the wires still attached to his torso. His lips curved to a wry smile. “So you’ve seen the scars,” he spoke to the white lines on his torso, littered around two huge jagged lines from his sternum to the base of his throat. A clean heart surgery scar would be just one incision mark, but Tony’s chest was a mesh of scars. The Omega shuddered when he thought of the kind of environment Tony must have been operated in.

More pressingly, Bruce was surprised by the sheer amount of self-consciousness and self-depreciation that could be detected from the Alpha’s voice. “Yeah. Twice, actually,” the Omega replied in a light, casual tone. Really, he couldn’t care less; Bruce had stretch marks all over his stomach himself. “Impressive battle wounds,” he referred to them teasingly.

Tony Stark’s kidnapping in Afghanistan was no secret. The news couldn’t stop covering it the three weeks he was gone (Bruce saw that ransom video once, and even though he didn’t know Tony then, that scared, hunted expression on the then hostage’s grey, sallow face was haunting). After Tony had magically made his way back to the US army base and told the press a shocking announcement, the media was in frenzy for at least another month. Bruce, along with the rest of the world, practically knew Tony’s whole life story.

“Huh,” Tony smirked, “I’m flattered you think of them that way.”

Silence descended upon them for a couple of second, Bruce observing his…’patient’, making sure that his breathing was even, until it was broken by Tony. “The surgery was performed by another…hostage they took, Dr Yinsen. Brilliant man. He helped me escape,” he looked down as he spoke, his brown eyes dark with – Bruce recognized the emotion – grief. Tony’s throat bobbed as he confessed, “he didn’t survive.”

Bruce didn’t say anything. He understood what Tony felt, a survivor’s guilt. Words like ‘it’s not your fault,’ had no use.  Instead, he inched closer to the other man, and squeezed his hand.

To Bruce’s surprise, the billionaire squeezed his hand back. The Omega looked up, and was taken aback by the strength of Tony’s gaze, the way those steely dark eyes stared at him resolutely, compelling him to keep an eye contact.

“Whatever you’ve done couldn’t be worse than what I’ve done, Bruce,” his normally rich and flirtatious voice was devoid of playfulness. “I, who was nicknamed the ‘Merchant of Death.’ And I don’t have any General Ross, ready to cut you out if you get too close.”

Bruce closed his eyes and jerked his hand back, but said limb was too firmly encased in Tony’s fingers. His first reaction was _anger_ , because _how dare he_ , but this was Tony Stark, the man who’d received countless threats his entire life, who’d been kidnapped several times; of course he would do a background check on Bruce.

 _I didn’t ask to be a part of his life_ , something in the Omega snarled, but Bruce forced his breath to even, his diaphragm to expand as much as it could, until his rage was under wraps, until he didn’t feel like bashing Tony’s head. When he re-opened his eyes, Tony still had an earnest look on his face, his eyes still watching Bruce unblinkingly. “Let me in, Bruce,” his whisper was as soft as the wind, his pale lips barely moving, “please give me a chance.”  

Tony waited an eternity as thoughts swirled behind Bruce’s unreadable eyes, neither of them moving a muscle. The world seemed suspended on a fragile thread, the only sound in Tony’s ears that of his uneven heartbeat, until a whoosh of air left Bruce’s lungs.

Tony looked too hopeful as Bruce’s brows furrowed wryly. “You’re going to keep trying, anyway.”

It wasn’t a question, but Tony nodded, and when Bruce finally, finally mirrored the movement, Tony couldn’t stop the bubble of laughter from leaving his chest.

And if Bruce appeared secretly hopeful, it was a trick of the eye.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. That’s the car Bruce and Tony drove at the end of the Avengers.  
> 2\. Nic and Jules, characters from ‘The Kids are All Right’ (2010). It’s kind of apt, since Mark Ruffalo acted as the sperm donor to the lesbian couple’s children in that movie.  
> 3\. About tachycardia: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/Arrhythmia/AboutArrhythmia/Tachycardia_UCM_302018_Article.jsp  
> 4\. Difference between heart attack and cardiac arrest: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/CardiacArrest/About-Cardiac-Arrest_UCM_307905_Article.jsp


End file.
